


living, not breathing

by tetsurashian



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 07:54:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5959522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsurashian/pseuds/tetsurashian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurosaki Ichigo is dead. He has the death certificate to prove it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	living, not breathing

1.

Ichigo is eleven when he gets hit by a car.

He doesn’t remember much, really, only that he was crossing the street and that the car came out of nowhere. (Looking at both sides of the road was one of many things his mother taught him, after all.) It was a hit and run, but there were many eyewitnesses and at least three of them took note of the car’s plate number and made sure the driver got the punishment he deserved.

(The ones who die terribly young are always the most tragic and most remembered - Ichigo knows after seeing countless child spirits and their living, grieving families for as long as he could remember.)

But the thing that stuck to him the most, was that one moment when he rolled over the hood of the car and his shoulderblades and skull crashed against the front window and amidst the sharp unbearable pain and the red bleeding into his vision, well-

He never really noticed how blue and bright the sky was, after his mother’s death.

 

2. 

Afterwards, he comes home with a chain hanging from his chest and to his father’s pale, tear streaked face.

“Ichigo,” Isshin chokes, “ _ Ichigo _ .”

Ichigo’s picture, he notices, is right beside his mother’s in what he now supposes is their shrine.

“Sorry for making you wait,” he says to his father (who he’s never seen look so  _ broken _ , and he hates that it’s his fault, always his fault) and adds, “ _ Tadaima _ .”

Isshin’s crying gets so loud that it wakes Karin and Yuzu, and they join the crying when they see Ichigo themselves.   
  


 

3.

“Interesting,” Urahara - a weirdo friend of his dad’s - says for the seventh time in the one hour he’s been examining Ichigo. “And you don’t feel any different at all?”

Ichigo shrugs. “Still pretty much the same. A bit flowy too, I guess?”

“Flowy?” Urahara quirks up an amused smile to which Ichigo scowls.

“Light. Floaty. Whatever.”

The older man hums. “Interesting.”   
  


“So?” Isshin wrings his hands in uncharacteristic worry while Yuzu and Karin pretend that they’re not listening in as they watch television. Ichigo walks to them and immediately gets pulled down to sit in between the twins. 

“There’s nothing wrong with him, other than the obviously dead and now a spirit thing,” Urahara strokes his chin. “In fact, I would even say he’s more stable than any spirit I’ve come across. His chain shows no sign of eroding and it looks like it won’t be anytime soon. The only thing that concerns me is that your boy has always had an abnormally large enough reiatsu for his age. A good chunk of it has disappeared, but still. It’s a miracle that no Hollow or Shinigami is knocking on your doorstep right at this second. It’s been how long, agan?”

“Three weeks since he died. Two days since he showed up.” Isshin somberly says, “He doesn’t remember anything in between - it’s like, he thought he died a few days ago. Like he just woke up from a long sleep and decided to come home.”

“Of course I’d come home,” Ichigo grumbles but smiles when his sisters snuggle to him - well, as much as they could with an incorporeal form. “Where else would I go?”

He misses the speculative look Urahara sends him. “Where, indeed.”

  
  


4.

Life goes on. No one else but his family and the Geta-Boshi seems to be able to see him, so he spends his days watching over his sisters, walking around the still the same Karakura, and fucking with the local delinquents and assholes who don’t know the goddamned meaning of respect.

He finds out that the road he died in now has a plaque that says “In memory of Kurosaki Ichigo” which is… nice, he guesses. The community is well-meaning and from what he remembers, there were a quite a few people that day and seeing someone die is bad enough but seeing a kid run over by a car, well. He appreciates the thought and the donations some well wishers drop into his dad’s clinic.

He missed the school assembly of his death, of course, and he hasn’t gone by there or the dojo to see how Tatsuki is doing. He also didn’t get to attend his own funeral, which oddly enough, he’s somewhat disappointed in. After all, how many can one say that they attended their own funeral?

(Sometimes he thinks he should worry about his newfound gallows humor or his strange new-but-same personality. But death changes people, some more than most, and no one else seems bothered, so he buries worries and keeps - not living. Existing.)

  
  


5. 

Three months after being dead, Yuzu curiously asks over dinner, “ _ Nii-chan _ , what happened to your chain?”

“Huh?” Ichigo looks down on his chest as Isshin starts choking on his  _ nikujaga _ and sees the chain has, well, disappeared on him. He runs his palm over where it used to be and it was like it was never there in the first place.

“Stay here,” Isshin hurriedly says, scrambling out of his seat and to the house phone where he tries - and fails twice - to call Urahara and demands him to  _ ‘get to his house ASAP, DAMMIT. THIS IS CODE STRAWBERRY. I REPEAT, THIS IS CODE STRAW-’  _

Urahara is there in no time, and takes one look at Ichigo’s unimpressed form and beams. Ichigo scowls and feels a tick forming when Urahara opens his mouth, “Inte-” 

“If you say ‘interesting’  _ one  _ more time, I’m going to shove your balls up-”

“ _ Nii-chan _ !” Yuzu interrupts, scandalized. Karin rolls her eyes and steals some of her dad’s potatoes. 

 

“He’s not a Plus,” Urahara says after a round of examinations, “or if he is one, he’s a special kind. Not a  _ jibakurei _ . But we knew that already. Honestly, this is something I’ve never seen before.” 

“Does it really matter what I am?” Ichigo frowns. “I feel the same as always.”

“It matters, Ichigo-kun,” Geta-Boshi says quietly, “It matters because for all we know you’ll turn into a Hollow one day, or something else, something worse, and we need to be prepared for it so that you won’t be able to hurt anyone.”

Ichigo stays silent for a moment before nodding. “I understand. Hurting someone needlessly is something I don’t want to do.” 

Urahara smiles, “I know.”

 

(“It’s very strange,” Urahara admits to Isshin later that night, after Karin and Yuzu have long been in bed and Ichigo is just there, standing vigil over them. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had an anomaly such as your son.”

“Ichigo has always been special,” Isshin says with a melancholic smile as he takes a sip of his sake. “Masaki glowed the brightest when she was pregnant with him.” 

Urahara hummed, swirling his own drink, “When Ichigo-kun died, there was a shockwave of reiatsu around Karakura. I didn’t think much of it at the time, it was small enough to be negligible to the senses, and then you called me telling me Ichigo-kun was killed in a hit and run. Then the shockwaves happened again, in pulses, for three weeks.” 

“Ichigo was missing a chunk of his reiatsu when he came home.” Isshin blinks in realization.  

Urahara nods. “And I started thinking, where did it go? Then, where have all the hollows been? 

“There’s a protection, around Karakura. Like a shield, but made of pure reiatsu, and somehow it’s been repelling Hollows. Has been for the past three months. It’ll fade over time and eventually Hollows are going to come back again, but for now it’s there. And not even the Shinigami have noticed.” 

Isshin laughs, sad and glad at the same time. His eyes are wet, and he may be talking to Urahara, or Masaki’s spirit, or even himself when he says, “Always the protector, isn’t he?”)

  
  


6.

For Ichigo’s twelfth birthday, he receives three gifts.

Yuzu and Karin gives him his death certificate, framed in black sleek wood and with a bright red sticker that had the word “REDACTED” written in bold white letters. 

His father gives him a stack of make-up school work and enrollment papers to Mashiba Junior High, for next year. 

Geta-Boshi - Urahara - gives him a  _ gigai _ .

**Author's Note:**

> ((AVOIDS EVERYONE'S EYES CASUALLY))
> 
> may or may not be continued/expanded on.  
> tbh it was just something i thought of on a whim.  
> also this fic style is me kinda cheating.


End file.
